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Ahead of the 2023 general election, the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) continues to come up with strategies to outwit the other political parties to come tops in the election. Various fora, such as debates, town hall meetings, have particularly offered the party’s presidential candidate, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and other party members the opportunity to convince Nigerians on the need to vote the NNPP, across board, in the next election. Suffice it to state that Kwankwaso’s candidate may have made the 2023 presidential race a four-horse race. Kwankwaso, who is a former governor of Kano State, is a cult figure in Kano and has continued to make inroads into other parts of the North as well as the South. Even going by polls conducted by various organisations, the four leading candidates for the presidential election are Senator Bola Tinubu (All Progressives Congress), AlhajiAtikuAbubakar (Peoples Democratic Party), Mr Peter Obi (Labour party) and Kwankwaso (NNPP). While past elections have largely been a two horse race, there might be a change this time with the growing popularity of the NNPP and the LP. Evidence of the tide-changing relevance of the likes of the NNPP in the forthcoming electoral contest is seen in the fact that political analysts, till now, find it difficult to predict a clear winner of the next presidential election. They note that with the NNPP and the LP, the 2023 election will be so keenly contested such that a winner will only emerge by a slim margin. Sure of his acceptability, Kwankwaso has consistently declared that he has no plan to enter into an alliance with the APC or PDP for the elections.
Some analysts, particularly, predict that a winner will not emerge at the first ballot, except after a second ballot or a runoff. Giving a hint to a likely keen contest, National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mr Festus Okoye, during its meeting with bureau chiefs and editors of media organisations in Abuja, said the commission was already preparing to print double of the total number of the ballot papers required for the first ballot should there be a rerun where no candidate meets the conditional requirement for declaring a winner on February 25, 2023. Quoting relevant sections of the 1999 constitution, Okoye stressed that a candidate could only be declared winner for a presidential election only if he or she has the highest number of votes cast and secures a quarter of the votes cast in two-thirds of the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja.
INEC’s forecast is not out of place. The NNPP can boast of having appreciable presence in the North. The North-West remains the largest base of NNPP, with Kano as stronghold. Probably, in joining the moving train, some politicians have defected from the APC and PDP to the NNPP. Some politicians, who pitched their tents with the NNPP,have emerged as gubernatorial, National Assembly, State Houses of Assembly candidates. The NNPP is also gaining grounds in the North-East and the North-Central. The huge turnout for Kwankwaso’s recent visits to Nasarawaand Plateau, both in the North-Central, may be pointers to that the NNPP continues to gather momentum ahead of the 2023 elections. Indeed, a fierce battle for votes of the North is expected among the PDP, APC and NNPP. Some analysts argue that the NNPP and its presidential candidate, Kwankwaso, will get good number of votes in Kebbi, Kano, Jigawa, Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara and Kaduna States where it will be fielding governorship candidates. The likes of Abba Kabir Yusuf, Suleiman Hunkunyi, AminuRingim and Muhammad Nura Khalil are the governorship candidates in Kano, Kaduna, Jigawa and Katsina in that order. These candidates who are formidable on their own are expected to campaign vigorously for Kwankwaso in their respective states.
The NNPP is also making inroads in the South-West. In Oyo State, the NNPP has caught a big fish in AlhajiBisiOlopoenia, who hitherto was a strong member of the PDP and backer of the governorship ambition of governorSeyiMakinde of PDP. Now with NNPP, Olopoenia, has a task to deliver the party’s governorship candidate, MrKayodePopoola.
While there would be no governorship in Osun State, people of Ede North, Ede South, Egbedore and Ejigbo Federal Constituency have declared support for NNPP House of Representatives candidate, HonourableMuslihudeenAdekilekun, for 2023. They believe that Adekilekun, a pharmacist, will give them a good representation in the House of Representatives.
Meanwhile, national chairman of the NNPP, Professor Rufai Ahmed, said the party is out to restore hope to Nigerians who had been subjected to misrule and hardship under the APC-led administration.
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Ahmed said: “The NNPP is going to offer hope, give new direction and reshape Nigeria’s political landscape and I can assure you that 2023 will be a great year for Nigerians irrespective of region or tribe. Immediately the NNPP emerged, people began to say this is what we have been looking for and it has even gone beyond our own imagination. It is just on auto drive that things are just moving so fast. We started this national movement that has transformed into NNPP a long time ago because we looked at the terrain and the situations of things and we concluded that Nigerians would not accept what was happening then and what was going to happen next and they won’t allow it to continue.
“We are calling on Nigerians to come forward and come out of their cocoon. Sitting still, agonizing, wailing, shouting, screaming will not stop anything. They have all the opportunities now and anybody who fails to use this opportunity must be comfortable with what is happening now and must now complain.”
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